Last September, Greg Sonnier stuck a "For Sale" sign into the ground outside 438 Henry Clay Ave. It was an act of frustration, not an advertisement, as Sonnier had no intention of selling the property.

"I just figured it couldn't hurt, " he said.

Sonnier, one of New Orleans' most respected chefs, and his wife Mary ran Gabrielle, the acclaimed Esplanade Avenue restaurant, for 13 years before it was engulfed by floodwater. Last March, the couple purchased The Uptowner, a reception hall at 438 Henry Clay, with the intention of transforming it into a new and improved Gabrielle. The location was, in the minds of the Sonniers, perfect: a historic building with a beautiful patio on high ground a short walk from their family home.

And perfect is precisely how it seemed until last spring, when the Sonniers publicly announced their plans for the property. They soon discovered that the storm did not cleanse the city government of dysfunction, nor did it wash away long-standing conflict over businesses in their Uptown neighborhood.

Residents living near 438 Henry Clay fear that a business run by Sonnier, a James Beard nominated chef, will create a parking problem and disrupt the neighborhood's tranquility. They have seized upon a permit and licensing snafu, rooted in the corroded inner workings of New Orleans' City Hall.

The Sonniers have found that the occupational license issued to their business by the city adhered to pretzel logic. The document clearly indicates that the property is licensed to be a restaurant, but in the words of Edward Horan, a zoning administrator with the New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits, the city "issued (the Sonniers) a restaurant license even though they're not licensed to be a restaurant."

Eddie Sapir, the former City Council president who lives near the contested property, is the most prominent member of the Sonniers' vocal opposition. He takes issue with what he characterizes as the Sonniers' failure to go through the proper process for licensing their business.

"There are steps A, B and C, " Sapir said. "If you want to be a restaurant, you have to go through this process."

The months Sonnier has spent navigating City Hall amount to a saga worthy of Franz Kafka -- or, perhaps more accurately, Monty Python. To this day Sonnier is confused as to exactly what he purchased for $700,000.

"If you're buying a business and every license says that it's licensed as a restaurant, wouldn't you assume that you'd be licensed to run a restaurant at that location?" Sonnier said.

Sonnier was asking the question rhetorically, but City Hall and, more emphatically, a vocal group of his neighbors, have answered "no."

Last September, when Sonnier planted the "For Sale" sign in front of his would-be restaurant, he hoped it would pique enough interest to rally sympathetic New Orleanians to his cause.

But his adversaries, led by attorney Michael Sherman and including Sapir, have since taken to sign-posting themselves. Their handiwork is found in the front yards of homes surrounding 438 Henry Clay. Sonnier passes the signs countless times every day as he walks the short distance between his family's home and the place where he hopes to slow-roast ducks one day. The signs say that he is not welcome to do so because "the law doesn't permit it."

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An early hint that Gabrielle would not open last summer as planned came in July, when Sonnier tried to renew his occupational license. The business description line of the document issued to him in May read "1105 Full Svc Restaurants (Table Service)." The same line of the license issued in July said that the business was not operating pending approval by Safety and Permits.

Safety and Permits is the office that reviews and makes recommendations on applications for occupational licenses, which are in turn issued by the Bureau of Revenue. Sonnier said he inquired with Safety and Permits about the change in the license's business description. He was told that despite what the license said, his business was licensed as a reception hall, not a restaurant.

"I was like, 'Well, what's the difference between' " a reception hall and a restaurant, Sonnier recalls asking. He said he couldn't get a straight answer.

"I asked every city official from the people in Mayor Nagin's office to the guy at the desk where you get your license: 'What are the rules for operating a reception hall?' " Sonnier said. "Nobody knew. Oliver Thomas, Arnie Fielkow, on and on down the line."

Romy Samuel, collector of revenue for the Bureau of Revenue, confirmed that her office issued The Uptowner a restaurant license because the city has never had an official designation for reception halls. The document's language was previously not an issue, she said, because Sally Tisdale Johnson, the business' former owner, "very well knew what she was licensed to do." Samuel couldn't say exactly what that was.

Sonnier spent much of the rest of the summer being told by city officials that what the permits said and what they mean are two different things. He was the owner not of a restaurant but of a business the city couldn't define.

"I'm trying to follow the laws, " Sonnier said. "But apparently the city doesn't have any laws for me to follow. They don't have any laws about what a reception hall is. They're trying to manufacture them at this point, and I don't think it's fair."

Howell Crosby, the Sonniers' attorney, compares the whole episode to playing cards with his older brother Tommy. "He always told me the rules of the game after the cards had been dealt, " he said.

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The building at 438 Henry Clay Ave. is in an affluent neighborhood composed of homes that are generally smaller and more tightly packed than in other areas of Uptown. It's nestled against Audubon Park, and its residents are no strangers to public imbroglios over commercial properties.

The most heated disputes in recent years have concerned the Whole Foods Market in Arabella Station and Audubon Tavern 2, a Magazine Street bar whose liquor license was revoked in 1999 amid neighborhood outrage over its customers' drunken behavior.

Each controversy doubled as a forum for an ongoing debate that has been reinvigorated by the prospect of Gabrielle's opening. It concerns whether businesses enhance or detract from the quality of life in a largely residential neighborhood.

On one side are those who believe a new business will tip an already traffic-stressed area into dysfunction. A letter signed by 10 neighborhood residents sent last year to City Council members Shelley Midura, Oliver Thomas and Arnie Fielkow argued that the neighborhood "is already in an extreme parking crisis" and "inappropriate for a new restaurant or banquet facility."

On the other side are fans of the Sonniers' refined spin on south Louisiana's homey cuisine who believe the nationally recognized restaurateurs will add value to the neighborhood as well as the business-starved city. In an e-mail sent to Midura last week, Jack Jelenko emphasized that Uptown is not a suburb and that this is no time for New Orleanians to be driving respectable businesses out of town.

"Since the city cannot get it right, " Linda Mayer wrote in a letter to Midura, "the Sonniers have to suffer and pay for it."

On a legal level, Sapir maintains that a zoning change is required for Sonnier to open a restaurant in the old Uptowner. This would require a public hearing before the City Planning Commission, which would then make a recommendation to the City Council.

Even Sonnier concedes that he might have avoided a headache had he recognized that the property's zoning and licensing were inconsistent, a point Sherman and Sapir characterize as an example of the chef's insufficient due diligence.

"Forget about what that paper said, " Sapir said. "If somebody paints the word cow on the side of a horse, you don't have a cow. You still have a horse."

Sherman and Sapir, however, did not garner support for their opposition to Gabrielle by appealing to their neighbors' reverence for city codes.

At a meeting of the Audubon Riverside Neighborhood Association (ARNA) last November, Sonnier realized he was up against much more than the inexactitudes of city government. He likened the atmosphere to a "Roman forum" well-attended by neighbors who oppose his plans for 438 Henry Clay.

After being questioned about parking, he recalls telling the crowd, " 'This was a long-standing business I bought. It's not like I'm starting anew.' "

Sonnier said one angry neighbor responded by bringing up the time his driveway was blocked by a parked car when The Uptowner was still in business.

"I live down the street, too, " Sonnier said. "Someone blocked my driveway once. I was mad. But I didn't hold the grudge for two or three years."

One neighbor argues that Gabrielle would attract a steady stream of delivery trucks and generate pest-attracting trash and unwelcome odors, among other problems. The neighbor has an anti-Gabrielle sign posted on her front lawn, and she spoke publicly against the Sonniers at the ARNA meeting. But, like several of her neighbors with signs in their yards, she shared her views on the controversy only on condition that her name not be used.

"Particularly now with the crime environment, you're going to have opportunistic crime, " the resident argued. "I'm not disparaging the workers he might have, but you're going to have dishwashers, if not necessarily them, the people who are picking them up and dropping them off."

Janet Daley also lives near the contested address. She said she fears that the restaurant's crowds will short-circuit the serenity she found when she purchased her home three years ago.

Daley said that The Uptowner held events so sporadically as to have "no impact" on the neighborhood, which in her view is already overburdened by the presence of Clancy's and Nardo's, two popular restaurants near 438 Henry Clay.

As it is, Daley said, there is "no place for the patrons to park."

She continued, "There are a number of persons in the area that have purchased homes" for prices similar to what the Sonniers paid for The Uptowner. "Don't they have a right to enjoy what they purchased -- a quiet neighborhood where they could park without hassle, where they could sleep in peace without the noise of a restaurant operating almost every night?"

"It's almost like some people don't want to see anything happen, " Sonnier said the day after the November meeting. "How is the city ever going to come back if you don't let the businesses that were here return? 'Not in my neighborhood.' It's crazy."

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The standoff between Gabrielle and its opponents has grown nastier in recent months.

In November, Sherman filed an appeal with the Board of Zoning Adjustments challenging Safety and Permits' decision to license 438 Henry Clay as a reception hall. In a letter to the zoning board co-signed by neighbors Harris Rea IV and John Paul Sapir, a student at the University of Alabama and Eddie's son, Sherman contended that the property should have lost its "non-conforming use as a 'reception hall' " even before the Sonniers purchased it.

Citing Section 13.6 of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, Sherman wrote, "Because The Uptowner had previously been used only intermittently, it lost its non-conforming use."

Sherman attended an Audubon Riverside Neighborhood Association board meeting in December to explain his position. It was held in the back room of the Italian Pie pizza restaurant on Magazine Street, and most of the evening was spent discussing Gabrielle and the appeal to the Board of Zoning Adjustments.

The way Sherman told it, The Uptowner was not a full-time business. (Tisdale Johnson, The Uptowner's former owner, said Sherman is wrong.) Sherman argued that a reception hall that held parties only sporadically was essentially illegal. Nonetheless, he implied that he'd welcome just such a business down the street from the building where he owns a condo, which he admitted has off street parking.

"If someone were to come in and operate a business once every couple of weeks, I wouldn't have a problem with that, " he said. "But this is Gabrielle. People come from the north shore to go to Gabrielle."

ARNA president Andrew Pilant wondered, "If (Sonnier) wins this appeal, what exactly will he be licensed to do?"

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Samuel said that the Bureau of Revenue now has an official designation for reception halls. "This application forced us to realize we needed it, because of what the Sonniers have gone through, " she said. Asked what sort of activity a reception hall license allows, she suggested calling Safety and Permits.

Edward Horan at Safety and Permits said that since the Gabrielle dispute has arisen, rules have been drawn up that allow reception halls "to have parties, large parties, on a regular or intermittent basis." The license, however, "doesn't allow you to be open to the general public on a walk-in basis."

But a clarification at City Hall does not necessarily clarify the Sonniers' future. They are, among other things, still enmeshed in a game of legal ping-pong.

Crosby, the Sonniers' attorney, filed a temporary restraining order blocking the zoning board hearing, which was scheduled for earlier this month. That matter is scheduled to be heard later this month in Civil District Court.

At this point, the Sonniers feel they have lost even if they prevail in court. Victory in the zoning board fight would mean only that they could operate a reception hall, which was never their intention.

"The City of New Orleans issued all of these licenses, and we invested in this property as a result, " Sonnier said. "Now you're saying we can't operate. Who's at fault here?"

It's difficult to find two public officials who agree on the details of the matter, much less one who understands it completely.

Last week, council member Midura sent a form letter response to citizens who e-mailed urging her to intervene. It begins with a promise to iron out the "confusion" surrounding Gabrielle.

"My office will not interfere with a clearly defined process such as this, " the letter reads.

Midura said she's not taking sides in the dispute so as to remain impartial in the event that the matter comes before the City Council.

"Everything down there in city government, it just ain't a perfect world, " Sapir said. While conceding that everyone would be better off if it were, the former council president still insists that it's the citizens' burden to navigate the imperfect system at their peril.

"We're a buyer beware state, " he said. "You have to be aware."

Sonnier said that in recent weeks Councilwoman Stacy Head has come forward offering to help. Nevertheless, no single breakthrough will pave the way for the reopening of Gabrielle.

There is still the unresolved matter with Sapir, Sherman and the Board of Zoning Adjustments, as well as a legal dispute between the Sonniers and Tisdale Johnson regarding, among other things, the previous Uptowner owner's representation of the property during the sale.

Johnson's attorney did not return calls seeking comment.

At this point, all Sonnier knows for sure is that he's not going to quit.

"If we give up at this point, we're going to let a lot of people down, " he said. "There's a silent majority out there that doesn't want us to fail."
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Restaurant writer Brett Anderson can be reached at banderson@timespicayune.com, or (504) 826-3353.